


How Root Got Dosed

by bruisespristine



Series: Past the Precipice [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Drugs, Drugs Made Them Do It, F/F, Kinda, Masturbation, Phone Sex, Roofied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 08:04:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4952755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruisespristine/pseuds/bruisespristine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's okay, the Machine has a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Root Got Dosed

**Author's Note:**

> translation available here

The Machine chatters in her ear as she slips down the corridor, her back to the wall. The lighting is terrible, and there are no hackable cameras in this supposedly disused laboratory, but She is keeping Root posted with blueprints, GPS locations for the people inside carrying phones, and other pertinent info taken from the computers in the facility.

 _Go left._ Root obediently takes the left turn looming ahead, wishing she’d brought a flashlight. The corridor is littered with abandoned scientific equipment that catches on her feet and threatens to trip her. Underfoot something glass, maybe a petri dish or test tube crunches with a loud enough sound to make her freeze midstep, waiting for an attack. Supposedly the Armenian Mob have started a drug lab in this abandoned facility, and Root is here for the fairly straightforward job of burning it down. To make sure she gets all of the stock she has to make her way to the storage area, and set up there. She thought about bringing Shaw, because it’s nice to do things together. Like a date, and everyone knows Shaw prefers arson to a candlelit dinner. In the end she’d decided against it because the Machine informed her Shaw had had a rough day and was nursing a headache with a criminal amount of Chinese food and planning on an early night. Even though Root kind of thought a nice mission might cheer her up, the idea of Shaw curled up in footie pajamas (Root assumes) was just too cute to disturb. 

_Right at the junction._ Just as Root rounds the corner, the Machine pipes up again. _Hostile approaching. Risk to Interface 13%._ Root turns on her heel, but under her a sheet of paper ruins her footing and she slides, her knee banging painfully into the wall. Before she has time to recover, the door right next to her bursts open, smashing into her leg. _Imminent danger! Do not inhale! Recalibrating. Risk 91%. Do NOT inhale._ The Machine sounds as close to panicked as She gets. The door rebounds off her and back into whoever opened it, who lets out a yell of surprise. She scrambles out of the way, heart pounding from the new warning. She obediently holds her breath as she moves. There’s a smashing noise, and then her eyes start stinging furiously. Her lungs protest as she gets to her feet. _Cover face with fabric, take eighteen paces to your right, turn 90 degrees, fourteen paces forward, enter door._ Forcing herself to stay calm, even though her nerves are singing and she can hardly see through her streaming eyes, Root follows the instructions to the letter. Her lungs scream at her for air before she’s taken the first turn, and she’s halfway down the next corridor before she has to take a breath. The Machine whirrs comfortingly in her ear, telling her the chemical to air ratio is not fatal, not even horrendously toxic this far from the source. As soon as she is in the room, the Machine directs her to a sink and with trembling hands she flushes out her eyes and mouth, even her ears and the delicate tissue of her nose. 

_New directive, return to safe house as soon as possible, abandon original mission. Air contaminated._

“What did I absorb?” Root’s voice sounds a little high pitched in her own ears, and she can feel her heart fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird as she climbs out a window and down an old, rusted fire escape. The Machine guides her to her car, out of the maze of factory buildings. 

_Derivative of 5-(2-fluorophenyl)-1-methyl-7-nitro-1H-benzo[e][1,4]diazepin-2(3H)-one, street name Rohypnol, designed to lower inhibitions and increase suggestibility, mixed with four parts 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, street names MDMA, Ecstasy, Molly. Manmade drug that produces energizing effects similar to the stimulant class amphetamines as well as psychedelic effects, similar to the hallucinogen mescaline. MDMA is known as a “club drug” because of its popularity in the nightclub scene, at “raves” (all-night dance parties), and music festivals or concerts. Symptomatic effects include elevated heartrate, high temperatures, poor judgement. People who use MDMA might feel very alert, or “hyper,” at first. Some lose a sense of time and have other changes in perception, such as a more intense sense of touch. Serotonin also triggers the release of the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, which play a role in feelings of love, sexual arousal, and trust. This may be why users report feeling a heightened sense of emotional closeness and empathy. Combined lethality-5 grams. Analogue Interface inhaled approximately 0.9 grams, danger to asset minimal. Within eight hours Interface’s system will be clear. Suggest isolation in safe location with plenty of access to fluids._

The Machine’s chatter is not actually very reassuring, and after a few moments Root tunes her out, concentrating on the tactile sensations of the leather steering wheel under her palms. The material feels good, whispering against her skin, and she can feel a big grin on her face. It’s the drug, she tells herself, only the drug, just get home. The Machine helps her en route, changing stop lights and guiding her around snarls of traffic. She stumbles up the stairs to her apartment building, not even locking the car. Her heart feels too big, too much for her chest, and her clothes are overloading her sensitive skin. She drops the keys twice before managing to fall through the door, and waits for the elevator for a few moments before the Machine gently reminds her that she hasn’t pushed the button. It feels good depressing it, like she’s connecting to something, so she presses it again and again, giggling quietly until the elevator dings its arrival. By the time she crumples on her sofa, her body is juddering with contained energy and she yanks her shoes off, wanting to feel the smooth wood floors under her feet. It’s practically orgasmic, and she gets to her feet. “Play music for me.” Her voice sounds dreamy and ethereal, and she likes the way it feels to speak, so when the Machine obediently starts a playlist of her favourite songs, she sings along with great enthusiasm, feet scuffing patterns etched in light on the amber wood of her living area. “And she looks like I think Jesus would have looked...” What an amazing song, she thinks, imagining Shaw striding down a corridor, guns blazing. It’s a thrilling thought, and she runs her hands up and down her torso as she gets lost in the music and the motion. 

She dances for an hour before she tires, so thirsty she drinks straight from the tap in huge gulps, filling her stomach with the icy liquid. The Machine has been worriedly suggesting a cold shower for a while now, but she ignores it, clicking her CD player on and lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling and imagining the music washing over her in waves. A knock at her door and the gentle exhortations of the Machine to answer it rouse her, and she opens it to find a spotty teenage boy shuffling awkwardly with two enormous bags. “Miss Root?” 

“Mmm, yes. I suppose that’s me. What do you want? Do you want to dance with me?” 

The boy looks even more flustered, if that’s possible, and thrusts the bags at her, turning tail without waiting for an answer. Root is confused for a moment, but shrugs it off, continuing to pinch her nipple and enjoy the waves of sensation that flow through her from tingling scalp to toes. The Machine persuades her to put the ice in the freezer, which results in abandoning a few popsicles and a packet of burgers on the kitchen table, forlornly dripping water as they melt while Root dances around the house. 

She gets warmer and warmer, until finally the Machine’s statistics and information convince her that maybe an ice bath is just the ticket for cooling her burning blood. 

The bath is awful, but it does chase away some of the overwhelming sensations for a moment, clearing Root’s misty head. She can’t stop laughing as she sits in the freezing water, looking down at her naked body. She can’t stand it for too long, climbing out and shivering wildly, totally miserable with cold and overload. It isn’t even ten minutes before she feels the drug washing through her again, bringing waves of sensation and a strange mixture of pleasure and intensity so pure it almost hurts. She ends up on the couch, fever burning in her blood like a wild animal, sinking its fangs into her head until she can’t think of anything but her desperate body. She takes more baths, but each time the respite is smaller, weaker. 

She’s flushed and sweaty, sprawled out on the couch touching herself through her pants when her phone lights up on the table. It catches her attention and she glances over, never pausing in her frantic movements until she makes out the words on the screen. *Calling Shaw*

“No, no!” She snatches for the phone, determined to hang it up, cursing the Machine for an interfering, overbearing maniac when Shaw picks up. 

“What?” 

That voice ... that voice. It reaches down in to her spine and melts her from the inside out. Shaw sounds so angry, Root can picture her face perfectly, that full lower lip, pushing out just a little. Stern eyebrows drawn down over her beautiful nose, eyes glaring right through Root down into the firey depths of her. No one sees her like Shaw does, no one else understands who she is, what she’s done with such clarity and doesn’t flinch. Shaw never flinches. “Sameen.” It’s a cry for help, a promise, a liquid request. Of it’s own accord Root’s hand slides down inside her waistband and presses hard against her clit just as Shaw replies. 

“Root? What’s wrong?” Of course she’s worried, Shaw’s always so worried, for someone who professes not to have emotions or care for anyone. Such complex lies she tells herself. Root wants to break those lies down, spread Sameen out until she admits who she really is, behind those walls. They’re such opposites, Shaw is iron wrapped around something softer, something purer. The part of her that saves people, says she doesn’t care but over and over again puts herself in danger for what? For her humanity. And Root is steel inside, draped in silk and lies. She wants to drape herself on Sameen, rub against her until they melt into each other, making something even better than either of them can be alone. The thought makes her clench tightly around her fingers, sending a shock of pleasure skittering up her spine. “Oh, Sameen.” 

“Jesus, Root. Are you... are you jerking off?” There’s such heat in her question that Root comes back to herself for a moment, realises what she’s doing. Sameen. Oh, god. Sameen. Root had spent so long looking for her, refusing to believe she was dead, refusing to stop. She’d done everything she could to keep Shaw in her life after that horrible kiss goodbye, and stopped herself again and again from overstepping the boundaries Sameen needed from her. She’d never do this to Shaw normally, but the burning in her blood has different ideas, has her hands down inside her, but it’s not enough, never enough. 

“Please. Something’s... oh, something’s wrong.” Root squeezes her clit hard enough she see stars and drops the phone, but it doesn’t help, and she can’t do anything, anything but this, touch herself and try and try and try to get over the barrier, over the plateau of pleasure and panic that is strumming every nerve in her body like live wires, like electrocution. She can’t even get off the couch, stop for a moment to get a toy, or, her brain suggests, her taser. The Machine starts playing a porno soundtrack in her ear, which helps a little, almost there, almost there, but her brain keeps jumping out of it, back to Shaw, and she can feel the pressing weight of what she’s done, opened Pandora’s box, pun intended. She doesn’t know if she can ever force these feelings back down, force away the idea of Shaw being the only thing that can fix her. But she didn’t say anything, did she? She can’t remember the phone call, really, just the sound of Shaw’s breathing and the rage-arousal in her voice (one and the same for Shaw, really) and so she just touches herself frantically, trying to make all of it stop. Make the world stop. 

And then the door smashes out of its frame, and waiting in the dark space like an avenging angel is Shaw, something that looks like fear on her face. 

**Author's Note:**

> The song is Jesus, by Betty. It's really good. All mistakes with drug related facts are because I'm lazy.


End file.
